Almost a Contradiction
by HecateA
Summary: Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. G.K. Chesterton. Oneshot.


**SHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I'm not supposed to be on the Internet. I've been placed on a Witness Protection Program since the entire education system is trying to kill me in a pre-Christmas crunch of tests and projects and mega-projects. However my best friend Fry has received her birthday stories a while ago now and has enjoyed all of them (including the 70 page one), so I figure it's time to put them up. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of Riordan's world. **

**Dedication: To Fry.**

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><p><strong>Almost a Contradiction<strong>

_Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die._

_-G.K. Chesterton _

Jason had seen Reyna do some pretty stupid things.

Don't get him wrong. Reyna's smart. She's precise, calculated, thoughtful, rational, instinctive and strategic-and all of that in a lethal way. But he's known her too long and they've been through too much together for Jason to have missed any of her blunders. He's seen her jump monsters that an entire cohort would struggle with. He's seen her smart-mouth mortal security officers in all their powdered-sugar coated glory, and cause daring distractions during quests. He's seen her taken so much ambrosia that Jason felt his own insides flaring in order to get back into a fight. He's seen her drink out of the coffee maker instead of her mug at 3:00 AM.

But that whole attacking-a-Titan thing earlier really, really took the cake. Took the cake and ate it actually. She'd nearly _died. _Jason had rushed her back to the base camp of their questing party and the medics had taken her from his arms and rushed her in a first aid tent whose thick canvas was painted with a caduceus. They wouldn't let him follow her in and the apprentices had been dashing in and out on supply runs all afternoon. Jason knew because he'd sat there and watched them.

Gwen had had to come sit next to him with a bucket of water and a soft rag to wipe the blood off of his hands and clothes, and she'd shoved a granola bar in his mouth when the clock hit supper time. Jason told her he didn't think he could keep anything bigger than that down, so she put the other ones away.

Reyna had never been this hurt before. Sure, she'd had appendicitis a few years back. Yes, she was the person he knew who was most prone to paper cuts. She'd gotten nips from various monsters, bruises during training, scars from her time with Blackbeard and his whip, that black eye when Jason had woken up after a nightmare and accidentally elbowed her in the eye… But she always healed herself. She'd never passed out in front of him due to blood loss. She'd never actually scared a medic. She'd never actually _scared _Jason.

"She'll be okay you know," Gwen said.

"Then why is it taking so long?" Jason asked.

"Because Pluto doesn't know her well enough and he's still trying to talk her into going down," Gwen said running her fingers through his hair. He needed a haircut. He liked it this long, but Lupa would bite his head off (possibly literally).

Jason wasn't convinced. Since he wasn't a centurion anymore, but rather a consul, he didn't have any legionnaires to keep fed and hydrated and well-rested and no real responsibility until someone came at him with a problem or information on the titans' whereabouts, so he waited some more.

A medic walked out and Jason stood.

"Is she okay?"

He was walking quickly, so Jason knew right away that yes, she was okay. Medics were just as happy to give good news as people were to receive it. Only medics with bad news walked slowly.

"Yes," he said. He looked exhausted. His hands were wet, as if he'd just rinsed them off. "She lost a lot of blood. We underestimated the internal bleeding at first. We also thought she'd broken a few bones but…" he shook his head. "None of that matters. She's okay now."

"Thank you," Jason said. "When can I see her?"

"Well, right now. But she's knocked out."

"That's okay."

The medic nodded and walked off.

Jason had spent all day waiting, if he could at least wait while watching Reyna's chest go up and down, that would be an improvement.

He was at Reyna's bedside for about three hours before the medics started worrying about him too. He promised them that he'd sleep if he was tired and that really, he was okay. No, he hadn't been hurt during the big conundrum, Reyna had taken all the blunt of the attack (he was a bit ashamed to admit it).

Another two hours and she was awake, though the medics stole another half hour to fret around her and change her bandages and give her some water.

It took her another hour to gather her wits and strength to talk to him, but she remembered everyone's names as well as some basic long division and a few Spanish words that Jason knew from experience were quite vulgar. She even remembered her accident which was why Jason didn't feel too bad about spoiling their last moment alone with this:

"Don't you ever do that to me again," Jason said. "Never _ever _dare to be that stupid about yourself again, understood?"

"_Jésus," _ Reyna sighed.

"Don't you dare," Jason said. "I didn't know if you were going to make it or not just there and that was _terrifying." _

"I'm always going to make it," Reyna said.

"No," Jason said. "No because one day no matter how good, how strong, how fast, how disciplined and diligent you are there will be one monster that's going to be too big. One monster that you won't be able to beat."

Jason had learned this a long time ago. Jason had realised when he was little that he was a powerful and strong demigod, but he'd been just as small when he'd seen great heroes die and heard of emperors going mad and kingdoms crumbling.

His voice got quiet. "I was so scared that that Titan was yours, Reyna."

"Get off your soapbox," Reyna said. "If I hadn't taken that thing on, you would have."

Jason didn't know how to reply for a few seconds because _oh shit, _she was right.

"Either I took that Titan for you," Reyna said, "or you'd have taken it for me. You're just mad because I beat you to him."

She stuck out her tongue at him and the pure childishness of it made Jason smile because Reyna didn't instinctively think _time to stick my tongue out to Jason to make a point here I go, _she thought more like _time to make Jason feel better… _And the amount of care that she put into taking care of him made Jason realise that he took put a lot of energy into taking care of her, and she was absolutely right.

"Don't get cocky or I'll finish what he started."

"I don't get cocky," Reyna said. "I get real."

She was right. She was too level-headed and realist to get cocky.

"Then get real better real soon," Jason said.


End file.
